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Way, way, way off the Beltway

While I'm on vacation, I asked some regular readers if they would write the
column. After all, nobody knows the government better than the folks who work for
it...

For those of us who live off the Beltway — make that off either coast, make
that in the middle of our great country. OK, OK in the wild, wild West — the
comments made by the people in the Beltway are a puzzle. For example, over
Memorial Day weekend, Mike was complaining about the heat and more comments were
made about global warming than not. Those of us in the Mountain West were
expecting snow. Global warming to the Beltway is a typical spring to us.

The opposite is when the Beltway gets snow. The whole world shuts down. Even
though we walk five miles through the snow everyday to work (OK, so I drive 6),
those of us in the West go to work. But, there are some hardships; services can
go down that are operated by those in the Beltway, such as our intranet and
Outlook.

Not only am I in the Wild West, I am also in a small Post of Duty (POD) that used
to be an Area Headquarters before a few reinventions ago. Now, there are 22
employees and two managers. Now do the manager's manage 11 people each?...of
course not. We have 12 managers for 22 employees. The manager's are all over the
country from 100 miles away to a couple of thousand. Some manager's have never
even been to see their employee in the POD. Now don't get me wrong, this is a
good thing! Not having a manager breathe down your neck is kind of nice! We all
just get our work done, there are pluses to not having a manager on site.

Other differences are the distances. While those of you in the Beltway may spend a
couple hours behind the windshield to get to work, we do it to get to our field
calls. Only we are going up to 100 to 150 miles each way. And yes, at times
through snow. Luckily for me, most is on an interstate or a two-lane state
highway, but the ending point could be miles up dirt or gravel road. We get
directions at times about how many dirt roads to cross before getting to the one
we need. I have put a town's name into my Garmin and had it reply "What town?"

I do enjoy my visits to the Beltway, wondering around the monuments reflecting and
admiring, going "Wow" when watching the traffic and generally enjoying all the fun
things to do. I prefer my life way outside the Beltway. Short commute, perfect
summers and looking at a panoramic ring of mountains every day is worth not being
in the center of government.

"I'd like a Jack Daniel's ditch, please" means, "I'd like a Jack Daniel's and
water." This is not a joke. In fact, all you really have to ask for is a "Jack
ditch." Try it out the next time you find yourself in a Montana saloon.

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